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Lost in the suburbs' dark shadows

Catherine's eyes well up as she recounts how &quot;horrid&quot; life seemed a few weeks earlier. She had been &quot;bawling uncontrollably.&quot;

Catherine, seen in her Burlington home, completed the 24-day rehab program at Hope Place in Milton in January and continues to fight an addiction to prescription painkillers. At one point she had contemplated suicide because, "I felt like I was never going to be normal and couldn't take the suffering." (PAWEL DWULIT / TORONTO STAR)

By Isabel TeotonioSTAFF REPORTER

Tues., July 7, 2009

Catherine's eyes well up as she recounts how "horrid" life seemed a few weeks earlier. She had been "bawling uncontrollably."

The 37-year-old was fighting an addiction to painkillers, grappling with acute pain and slipping deeper into depression.

She had thought of downing a bottle of pills, but feared one of her young daughters would find her. After all, the girls often checked on her, offering tissues to stop the flow of tears.

"I felt like I was never going to be normal and couldn't take the suffering," recalls the stay-at-home mom, sipping a cup of coffee. "I felt like I was hurting everyone."

She had been out of rehab for about three months and was emotionally drained. There had been arguments with her husband, trips to doctors' offices and the fallout from stealing painkillers from her mother-in-law's medicine cabinet.

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But on that particular morning in mid-May, Catherine woke up and thought of writing a suicide note. Fearful that she would take her own life, she called her husband at work. After he returned home to watch the kids, she retreated to her room and broke down: "I was a mess."

Regardless of the demons she wrestles with, Catherine never looks like "a mess." Her strawberry blonde hair is perfectly coiffed, her makeup is carefully applied and she is always smartly dressed in matching sweater sets that are expertly accessorized with eye-fetching jewellery, belts and scarves.

She lives in a two-storey house, nestled in a middle-class pocket of Burlington – the kind with well-manicured lawns, basketball hoops in driveways, swing sets in backyards and hopscotch chalked on sidewalks.

She looks more like June Cleaver than a bug-eyed addict hooked on Percocet and OxyContin.

Her addiction landed her in Hope Place Women's Treatment Centre in Milton, where she attended a 24-day residential rehab program in January.

Catherine, who has been on antidepressants for 13 years, was diagnosed in 2006 with Interstitial Cystitis, which causes severe chronic pelvic pain. Because she is allergic to anti-inflammatories, she was prescribed Percocet, for short-term treatment, and OxyContin, a long-acting opioid drug also known as "hillbilly heroin."

The pain and depression was a "double-edged sword," said Catherine, which is not her real name. The pain fuelled her depression, which drove her to want more meds. She whipped through prescriptions and when she ran out, she would visit walk-in clinics, go to emergency rooms and "double-doctor," when a patient visits more than one physician to double up a prescription.

"I started to feel like a better mother, better wife, better housekeeper," she recalls, adding there were days when she popped 12 Percocet pills – twice the prescribed amount. "I felt like people liked me better and I functioned better."

But, in reality, she was barely functioning. Looking back, days were spent in a "fog." She drove when she shouldn't have, fell asleep while her children were playing and spent much of her time in bed.

At first, her husband didn't clue in.

But he eventually called the insurance company, which told him how many prescriptions she had filled. He confronted her and threatened to leave with the kids if she didn't get help.

"The thought of that was enough rock-bottom for me," she said one day at rehab while rubbing her arms covered in red spots, a temporary reaction to the painkillers.

"That just wasn't something I could fathom," added Catherine, whose daughters thought she spent January away at a spa.

With the detoxification came stomach cramps, diarrhea, sweating, nausea, tremors. In rehab, she handled the pain without medication, often rubbing her pelvic area to ease the discomfort.

When she returned home, she put her recovery first. She voiced her opinion, was assertive, attended regular meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous and also went to aftercare at Hope Place.

But she felt her husband was resentful and not supportive, as though he had expected her to return from rehab "cured." Meanwhile, she said he complained of being shut out and pushed aside. Within days they had their first blow-up.

Then came a painful flare-up and her doctor suggested she try meds with less addictive properties. She agreed and so began the quest to find the right cocktail of drugs. She tried an antidepressant, an anticonvulsant, a pain medication and antipsychotic drugs. None were a good fit.

Each time she switched meds, she would experience withdrawal symptoms such as nausea, anxiety and fatigue. Within weeks, she was wrestling with the same feelings that contributed to her addiction: isolation, depression and pain.

Attending meetings stopped being a priority.

"I was just feeling overwhelmed ... " recalled Catherine. "The other women at Hope Place didn't have custody of their children; they got to go home and focus on themselves and their recovery, but I had to jump back into this, into being a mom and a wife.

"When you're at Hope Place it's almost like you're protected from yourself, from the things that led you to make wrong decisions. And when you come home, there's no one protecting you ... So I had to come home and learn to live with me again."

It has been a tough lesson. On Easter Monday, while visiting her mother-in-law, she says she went searching for Tylenol but instead came across a bottle of Percocet. Had it been any other drug, she could have resisted. Instead, she swallowed two pills and stuffed eight more in her pocket, which she took over the next 24 hours.

"I wanted to get out of my head, like I didn't want to be where my brain was going. I wanted to be relaxed. That's why I took the Percs," she said. "That night I went home and watched Dr. Phil. It was a show on addiction. I cried throughout."

The next day Catherine's mother-in-law phoned her son to tell him about the missing pills. He was livid and sought advice from Hope Place, which suggested that his mom be the one to confront Catherine.

"When (my husband) came home from work that day I could tell something was wrong but he didn't say anything," recalls Catherine. "I think he was ready to leave me."

He didn't. Instead, he watched over their daughters while Catherine holed herself up in the bedroom. She sat on the bed, rocking back and forth. Shaking. Crying. Then she phoned her mother-in-law. "I said I was sorry and understood if she wanted nothing to do with me," recalls Catherine. "All she said was, 'I love you.' That's what really got to me."

Weeks later, in mid-May, Catherine found herself again in her bedroom. Sobbing. This time, contemplating suicide. Her husband got her to a hospital. And, again, her meds were altered.

Slowly, "the clouds lifted" and she began to feel normal, recounts Catherine, finishing her coffee. But how long will it last, she wonders.

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